


Shoot First

by misshoneywell



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Western, F/M, Historical
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-05
Updated: 2020-01-05
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:07:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22133776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misshoneywell/pseuds/misshoneywell
Summary: Retiring from a hard life as a gunfighter in the Wild West, Peeta Mellark finds one last wild thing he might never learn to tame.
Relationships: Katniss Everdeen/Peeta Mellark
Comments: 50
Kudos: 305





	Shoot First

**Author's Note:**

> This is a one shot I posted awhile ago on tumblr, but I'm cross posting those things here for permanence and stability. 
> 
> I’m definitely not a historian, so please forgive any glaring accuracy errors! This was just for fanfic fun.

“Another. Over ice.”

You’d think a man with his reputation would warrant a few more cubes in his glass of whiskey, but the surly barmaid with eyes like daggers plopped two measly pieces into his drink before sliding it down the bar with an expert flick of her slim wrist, sending it sailing toward him along with a complimentary scowl.

 _Over ice?_ The Widowmaker squinted and held his whiskey up to the light. _More like melting pebbles._

He swirled the amber liquid and took a swallow before letting the glass land on the scarred plank of wood serving as a bar—not that he hadn’t seen worse. He’d had drinks at establishments far less clean and tidy than this one, saloons with pox-ridden whores lining the staircase and flies swimming belly-up inside stinking steins of beer. They’d certainly not had an ice house at their disposal.

No, this place— _Sae’s Place_ boasted the flashy, gilt-edged writing on the shingle hung outside of the saloon—was a damn pretty sight for sore eyes. And a sore leg. 

He rubbed his thigh absently and not for the first time cursed the stray shot a couple months back that had all but ended his career as the fastest, most notorious gunslinger in all the Western territories. Oh, he could suffer through a few more jobs. Answer the distress call of another small town like this one and effortlessly clear out a handful of bandits menacing the population. Earn a wage, move on, rinse, and repeat.

But he was tired. It was time to face the facts: old gunslingers made dead gunslingers. And while at thirty-four he wasn’t exactly an old-timer, he wasn’t a spring chicken, either. His hand was as swift as ever, and he could ride, but mentally, he wasn’t in the game. The thrill had long since abandoned him, and whatever adrenaline rush and sense of accomplishment he’d once felt had disappeared with his foolish youth. What was left was a spotty conscience, a faulty leg, and a scarred, fearsome face that shook even the most professional of doxies.

And of course, there were the letters. He patted the pocket of his duster and grimaced, feeling the lump there.

The goddamn letters. He’d spent half of his life running from the responsibilities of home, but his past had come a-callin’ to hunt him down in the end—something no lawman, dueling desperado or bandito had ever accomplished. Guess that’d be what you call irony.

He drained his drink.

“One more,” he rumbled to the barmaid. “Now.”

The girl gave him a dirty look in return. An old saying crossed his mind, something about catching more flies with honey, but it’d been a long time since he had to use gentler means to bring a horse to water.

He watched her approach with the closest thing he’d felt to amusement in…Jesus, had it been years since he’d had a good laugh? He struggled to recall a blond, fresh-faced boy who’d always been good for a lark, and swiftly dismissed him to the furthest recesses of his mind, to where his past self had been banished.

But there was something about the way the barmaid sidled down the bar, reaching for his glass with slim fingers that somehow conveyed every bit of her aggravation with him. He was fascinated by the way they wiggled before wrapping around the handle of the cup. Enjoyed how she mulishly flipped that sleek, dark braid around. He liked how she sighed and her little pink tongue stuck out, as if pouring his drink was a hardship. 

He especially liked to watch her walk away.

“This is your sixth drink. Don’t you think you’re milkin’ it a bit, Widowmaker?” She pulled down a bottle from the end of the bar and filled his glass again. _Flick_. The glass flew across the wooden plank and landed in his hand, but he almost missed the catch when he heard her speak. 

“How so?”

“Even _famous_ gunmen—” this she said with a roll of her silver-dollar eyes “—gotta get cut off eventually. This here is premium liquor. You done had more shots of it than the amount of men you ran outta town.”

It was official; he was in a bad way if his dick was made hard by the low, modulated voice of a surly lil’ barmaid from a know-nothing town like Twelve Rocks. But it’d been awhile since he’d been with a woman and his body was telling him he ought to pursue that interest, to soften her a bit, work her up to accepting one of the brothel tokens the grateful sheriff had stuffed into his pockets before shoving him toward Sae’s Place.

“You’ve got a real smart mouth,” he finally said. Well, no one had ever called him a charmer.

She scoffed. “You’re the first who’s told me so.”

“Really.”

She gave him another one of those scornful looks. The pressure at the seam of his trousers grew more intense.

“No,” she deadpanned, turning away from him to serve another customer.

He took the opportunity to look the girl up and down, taking in her low-cut dress. The garment was much like the ones worn by the saloon girls lounging on the laps of men they would eventually trickle upstairs with. It was a puzzle; the barmaid’s clothing proclaimed her to be available, but her demeanor did not. 

His eyes drifted over to the wall beside the bar, where keys attached to tags hung from pegs on the wall. About half of the pegs were empty. But his eyesight was excellent, and from there he could read the minuscule writing etched onto the remaining copper tags: _Lola, Rose, Belle…_

“What’s your name?” he asked curtly, raising his voice to be heard over the din of the saloon.

She stiffened.

“What’s yours, _Widowmaker_?” the girl shot back, a note of suspicion in her voice warring with a hint of smugness, as if she had gotten one over on him. Well.

He took a sip from his glass. “Peeta.”

She blinked at him, and he felt real pleasure when her mouth dropped open in surprise.

“Yours?” he asked again, his stare deliberate. Peeta waited. When no name was forthcoming, he challenged her, “Believe that’s how name exchanges work.”

She gritted her teeth in response.

“Katniss!” hissed a dry, crackling voice. “What’re you doing, girl? Gettin’ on the last nerves of this fine fellow, I s’pose. Leave ‘em alone and let ‘em mix with some of the other ladies.”

The barmaid— _Katniss_ — met his eyes, and they both turned to look at the wall of keys. His gaze drifted over tiny names, until he landed on one that made his heart pound and his pulse race like he was a green, wet-behind-the-ears virgin rather than a hardened gunman.

_Katniss. Room 4. No guns allowed in room._

No guns? That’d be a problem. He paused. Looked at the lil’ barmaid with the smoky voice and breasts like two ripe plums and a smart mouth he had _thoughts_ about.

Then the owner of the reedy voice joined Katniss behind the bar, jarring him from his daydreams about hard-to-get saloon girls with tempting lips and olive skin.

“Good sir,” crooned a crone with garish red cheeks and a purple dress. Her white, powdered face was lined with age and greed. “I’m Madam Sae, the proprietor of the place. Let me show you some of our finest girlies—the best you’ll find this side of the Mississippi.”

He calmly took his gun from its holster at his side and slid it across the bar along with a pocketful of brothel tokens, exchanging every one of them for a full night of favors with the surly girl with a smart mouth.

Katniss gaped at him in return.

“No need,” Peeta said. He stood and walked toward the wall and plucked a key from the wall. “Made my choice.” He glanced at Katniss out the side of his eyes as if she were a spooked mare. “If she’ll have me.”

Sae recovered quickly, a consummate professional. “Course she will,“ she said briskly, scooping up the tokens. She left the gun on the bar top. “Take your piece with you, Widowmaker. I make exceptions for heroes.”

“‘Preciate that.” He re-holstered his gun. “Just wanted to be above-board.”

“Madam—” Katniss protested. 

“Get up there now, girl.” The madam lowered her voice to a deadly warning, her hand raised as if to slap the barmaid. Peeta tensed, poised to interfere. “You’re ‘bout useless to me. Hadn’t had a man in an age. Do this or you’re out, y'hear me?”

“Yes,” Katniss replied, subdued. She turned away and busied herself with choosing a lemon from a bowl on the bar, which she then slipped into her pocket. 

_Odd,_ he thought.

“Go on, now. Get your room ready,” Sae commanded, and the girl walked toward the stairs and ascended them without looking back.

Peeta ambled over to his stool and finished his drink with one swill. He gave the madam an assessing look. “Doesn’t seem too willing.”

Sae waved her hand. The loose flesh of her upper arm moved with the motion. “Pah. She’s just a contrary one. Girl don’t know how to act when someone picks her up, happens so rarely. Don’t let ‘er fool you, though. Prolly relieved to be of some worth.”

“You’d kick her out?“ 

She shrugged and picked her stained teeth with one long, yellowed fingernail. “She’s good at the bar and with a broom. Depends if another girl needed the room. One that can bring in some decent scuds.”

“Hm.”

“Lemme know if she gives you a set-to. I’ll have words with her.”

He bounced in his palm the copper key that proclaimed he was the guest of _Katniss, Room 4, No guns allowed in room_. “Sure we’ll get along just fine.”

Sae nodded a bit doubtfully. “Even so.”

He retrieved his hat from where it sat on an empty stool and nodded at the madam. He wound his way through the crowded tables littering the saloon floor, and when one of the drunk, flailing men accidentally clocked his bad thigh, Peeta hissed out a stream of air. 

“S-sorry,” the other man said, his glazed eyes widening in fear. He leaned back in his chair, and a bead of sweat glistened on his dusty cheek. Everyone in the room seemed to hold their collective breath. 

“It’s fine,” Peeta ground out, clearing the tables and heading up the stairs. 

It was ridiculous, how these grown suckers acted. As if he’d have a shoot out right there in the saloon over a stray elbow. He’d always appreciated, if not enjoyed, the wide berth his reputation afforded him in the past, but now that he was on his way out of the profession, he found it…exhausting. Tiresome. 

He cleared the steps and entered the long hallway, almost running into a saloon girl and her john as they rounded a corner. 

“Apologies, lover.” Her heavily made up eyes followed the line of his sturdy, finely made boots, the legs of his buckskin trousers, up his vest and then stopped like a wayward train off its track when she reached his face. He knew what she saw there—zippered scars bisecting his left cheek, a thick, puckered mark running from his right eyebrow down past his chin. A permanent, disdainful twist to his lips courtesy of a knife fight gone wrong. Nose thrice busted, set only once. A cold look in his eye that had come home to roost permanently after his dozenth or so kill. 

“Oh,” she breathed, twirling a thick, blonde curl around her red-tipped nail. The fear in her eye gave way to a sick sort of excitement, the type of look he had come to recognize in a certain kind of woman. She stepped away from her john. “Fancy a roll with Glimmer? Best in the house, yes siree. _All_ the fellas say so.”

“I’ll pass, thanks.”

Peeta moved to walk around the her, but she stopped him with a hand on his chest. 

“Sae’ll tell you. You won’t find better.”

He stepped back deliberately, letting her hand fall away from his body. “I said no.” Then Peeta pushed past her, ignoring her insulted exclamation. He knocked on the door of room number four.

“Her?” Glimmer scoffed, stamping her barefoot on the floor with an affronted smack. Her john slinked down the stairs, reeking of sweat and cigar smoke. “But she’ **s** —”

Out of patience, Peeta turned his head and fixed the woman with a look. She lost her color and fled down the steps after her john.

The door opened to room number four, revealing his small, frowning barmaid wrapped in a blue, silk robe. The tension in his body eased, to his consternation and befuddlement. Must be the scent of lavender wafting from inside the room. 

“You need an engraved invitation to come in?“ 

He gave her the same look he’d just given the other saloon girl, and Katniss laughed. 

“Oo-ee, gunslinger.” She walked backward, her hands held out in mock supplication. “That’s a scary face.”

His eyebrow twitched. “Thanks.”

“Shut the door, would you?”

He did as she asked, and there was a hushed moment as they both stood awkwardly in the middle of the room. The bed in the corner was all but taunting him. He hadn’t slept on a real mattress in well over a fortnight. 

Katniss toed off her slippers, and her eyes landed on the holster on his hip. “If you wouldn’t mind taking that off and placing it over there.” She pointed toward a small table by the window. “I’d be much obliged.” She shrugged out of the robe, and his mouth went dry. All he could see was delicate lace, silk and soft olive skin.

“Scared of guns?” he finally asked. Only the moans and squeaking of bed springs in the nearby rooms intruded in the silence between them.

“Daddy was shot and killed.“ Her reply was curt while she hung her robe on a hook, presenting him with the scantily clad back of her. Peeta didn’t know whether to look or to listen. His brain and his dick had opposing thoughts on the matter. “Tend not to think much about guns when you see the holes they make in your loved ones.”

“That’s fair.”

She made a huffing sound out of her nose, not unlike a wild mustang he’d once broke way back when Peeta was just a small shaver on the family farm. Then there was just the tense quiet all around them as she regarded him in her underthings. It struck him then that she looked like a very brave girl. Just a girl. 

But a pretty one, even with that scowling, stubborn face. Maybe because of it.

“We don’t have to do anything you don’t want.” It took an act of God to get the words out from his raspy throat.

The look she gave him was pure skepticism. “You just wanna stay up here playin’ pattycake all night?’

"No.” An truthful answer. “But I’d…settle for holding you a little.”

“Which part of me?" 

He sighed in response, and her faced softened a fraction.

"Don’t mean to be difficult,” she muttered, lighting the wick of a half-burned candle. “Just…what d’you want from me? Just tell me exactly how you want me—it’s easier that way. I feel like the other shoe is gonna drop with all this nicey-nice.”

“I’ve been on the road for weeks. I’m tired. And a bit lonesome,” he said, the words blunt. “Haven’t felt the kind touch of a woman in awhile.”

“Oh.” She looked at him as if he were a particularly difficult riddle. 

“Been even longer since I’ve found anyone I spark with. And you’re…” He struggled for the word, his voice gruffer than he’d like. No helping that. “Clean. You have an honest face. Different. But I won’t force you.”

“Different.” She sounded out the word, as if tasting it and finding the flavor lacking. “Sounds about right.”

“Didn’t mean it as an insult.”

“No. I figured. Just heard it all my life. Happens when your daddy is half native,” she explained, matter-of-fact. She watched his face for some kind of cue. “Changed your mind yet?”

“Bout what?" 

"Playin’ pattycake with me. Since I have Indian blood and all.”

“What’s that got to do with anything?” he asked blandly. 

“Turns some people off. Others, makes ‘em more interested. Gives ‘em a thrill to have something _different_ from blonde little Sally at home.”

Both the former and the latter made him feel a flash of anger that he worked to keep out of his expression.

“Doesn’t bother me.” Peeta looked toward the bed again. “I’m a murderer and an outlaw, depending on who you ask. Bother you?”

Katniss laughed wryly. Funny how that sound made him want to smile. “Nah, gunslinger.” She nodded once, the movement as sharp as her blade-like nose. “Alright, then. Guess we can get down to business.”

It occurred to him that he could be a gentleman and protest. But the girl was half-naked, willing, and…well. He was no gentleman.

“Sit down,” she invited, taking his hand and leading him toward the bed.

His fingers gave a curious tingle when her long brown ones wrapped around his, and he imagined tiny sparks between them before cursing his flight of fancy. A handful of months without sinking into a warm body and he was seeing fairy tales. There was something wretched about that.

He sat down on the sagging mattress, and watched warily as she knelt down in front of him. Was she going to…? He’d only had a woman take him in the mouth a couple times in the past, and he’d had to pay extra for the service.

“Lift your foot,” she said instead, and Peeta’s disappointment was tempered by puzzlement. He did as she asked, and she worked off one boot, then the other. When she reached for his socks, he almost balked. He was more surprised by the intimacy of having a woman remove his footwear than having one lick his spout. He’d rarely if ever removed all of his clothes when lying with a woman. 

He took the liberty of pulling off his shirt and vest while her nimble fingers worked at the button of his trousers, and he lifted his hips so the slacks pooled down around his bare, uncomfortably exposed feet.

She stared up at him for a moment, her eyes traveling over his body.

“It tickles me,” Katniss said, sitting back on her heels, “to see you in your union suit.”

He thought he liked hearing genuine delight in her voice, rather than that dry, jaded cynicism. If only it wasn’t aimed straight at his dignity.

“You thought I didn’t wear underclothes?”

She shrugged her smooth shoulders, and his eyes followed the rise and descent of them. “Dunno. Guess I thought the Widowmaker would’ve had on metal plates. Nothin’ as ordinary as those.” Her lips curved again.

“I’m a gunman, not a knight of the round table. Hate to disappoint, but we wear long johns.”

“Aw. Don’t get testy, pal. I was just funnin’ with you.” Katniss watched him as he started unbuttoning the union suit. She rose to her feet. “Need some help with that?”

“No.” He stood and stepped out of the underclothes, baring himself completely. “Better? Or am I still tickling you.”

She chewed her lip, all amusement fleeing from her grey eyes. “You’re…big.”

“Some have said.” Peeta reached out with a scarred hand and tilted her chin up.

Then he did something truly unusual. He kissed her.

He remembered every kiss he’d ever had. Lavinia Halleran at a barn raising when he was fourteen—she bit his tongue and made him bleed. Clove the whore when he was fifteen. Her lips tasted like cheap perfume, and her tongue was cold. And Mirabelle Madison, a married lady of distinction who wanted to ride the legendary Widowmaker. That was the best kiss of the three, but still unsatisfying and vaguely unpleasant. He begged off kissing after that, especially the whores. Kissing was unnecessary to the act of sexual relations, and he always discouraged the doxies from trying.

But he’d had a powerful hankering from the moment he laid eyes on his barmaid, borne from some bone deep desire to touch her. And fucking didn’t seem like enough.

He wanted to wrap that sleek braid around his hand, so he did. He wanted to pillage that smart mouth of hers, so he did. When she whimpered against his lips, he licked at hers in response. Frustration set in, because he wanted more, but wasn’t experienced enough in that particular art to follow through. For not the first time that day, he felt like a boy rather than a grown damn man.

“Wait,” the girl said, pulling away. Peeta tugged her back and pressed his lips to hers again, his hands skimming up her sides and snagging on the stiff material of the corset. He wanted the thing, _off_. “No, wait,” she said again, laughing against his mouth. He liked that. She looked up at him with a red, puffy mouth. “Like this.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry.” She kissed him again and worked his mouth open with her lips, and then slipped in her warm tongue and touched the tip of it with her own. His hands dug into her hips. The crisp smell of burning beeswax and cinnamon from the burning candle wafted into his nostrils as he inhaled deeply. He dimly registered the tune of a piano downstairs and the lusty sounds from the bedroom next door, but the slick music of Katniss’s tongue working against his was a louder melody.

He was the one who pulled away that time. He sat down on the bed behind them and cupped her hips, looking up at her with a face Peeta was certain looked even more hideous by the shadows of candlelight. Scars were made deeper, lips more twisted.

But if she was discouraged, her expression didn’t show it. In fact, he was downright mystified by the flushed, panting desire he saw. He’d only seen something even close to it on the girls who found pleasure in pain, and he hadn’t pegged Katniss for the type.

He tugged at the strings of her corset with one hand. “Can I take this off?” he asked, voice gruff. His cock was hard as a tack.

“Yes,” she said, her eyes conflicted, like she was trying to call back some composure. She watched his hands as they started to unlace the satin thing. One of his big, rough fingers brushed at the newly revealed skin, and she trembled. “I—yes. Whatever you want, gunslinger.”

“No. Tell me you want it.” With self-control he hadn’t known he possessed, Peeta let his hand fall away. He focused on the faded wallpaper behind her rather than her tempting, half-exposed chest, taunting him like a partially unwrapped birthday present. “You tell me, dammit, or I stop.”

She huffed. Lightly stomped her foot against the wooden slats of the floor. Glared down at him and looked away.

“I’m not supposed to want it,” she finally said, something like shame in her voice.

Ah.

“Yeah? Says who?” He slid his hand up her thigh, past her garters and stockings to the place that he hadn’t allowed himself to look at yet. He looked at her and pushed aside the thin material covering the shadowed triangle between her legs, and she nodded ever so slightly. Then he slipped a finger into soft folds. “You’re warm, and wet,” he said lowly. She met his eyes and stared, listening intently. “That tells me you want me, too. And that’s real good, because I need you slippery, because like you said. I’m real big, honey.”

“Yes,” she said, as if mesmerized.

“Can I take your hair down?”

She nodded, her expression dazed as he reached up and slowly unwound her thick, woven braid. His fingertips brushed against the silky ends, a warm feeling trickling through his gut and suspiciously north of his groin where the usual pit of desire was located. He met her eyes and an electric charge passed between them, and the unfamiliar tenderness creeping over him turned to something else as he wound her hair around his hand.

“Peeta,” she said, her lips barely moving.

Something about his name on her lips and the waterfall of inky black strands in his fist set a primal fire in him, and he lifted her up with one strong arm and down onto his lap as easily as if she were a doll.

He groaned when his cockhead brushed against her bare slickness, and he tilted her neck to the side and bit it, wanting, _needing_ , to claim the girl.

“Wait,” Katniss gasped, scooting back on his thighs and away from his straining hardness. “Not like that.”

“Like what?” He was hanging on by a thread, gripping her hips with a pressure that he was afraid would leave bruises. He eased up, but she grabbed his hands as if to say it was okay.

“I need this,” she said, twisting toward the small table beside the bed. He watched in confusion when she picked up the lemon he had seen her take from downstairs. “You got a knife?” she asked with difficulty.

He was gratified to see she was as wound up as he was, her olive cheeks burning and her nipples hard little points he wanted to bite.

“A knife?” Peeta asked, distracted by the red tips. He took one into his mouth and she sighed. Not a mewling whimper or theatrical scream from Katniss like the last woman he’d fucked—a widow some nine months past—but a breathy, shivery little gust of air, like she was falling apart.

“I need it to…to cut up this…this…” She dropped her head back and ground down onto thigh, so wet that he could feel the moisture on his skin. “The _lemon_.” The fruit in question fell from her hand and rolled across the wooden floor when he nuzzled and sucked at her breast.

“Darlin, I’m not followin’ you,” he gritted out, releasing her nipple with a pop. “What in hell’s name are you talkin’ about? I don’t even like lemons. Or lemonade.” He scooted her closer to him, his cock searching out her folds again. “I hate em’ even more now.”

Katniss put both hands on his chest. “I can’t have a baby.”

He stared at her, his face blank. “That’s good. Real good.”

“No. The lemon, we slice a piece. Then…I stick it up…you know.” She looked flustered and beautiful, and if he wasn’t so disturbed by the sudden realization of what the lemon was for, he would have kissed her pretty, flushed cheek. “I just need some help because I’m not too sure how to go about it by myself. But I can’t have a little one—”

“I’ll pull out,” he said, covering her mouth with a big hand. “I’m not puttin’ a lemon inside you.”

She looked at him doubtfully. “I don’t know.”

“Haven’t been with a woman in ages. No diseases.” His jaw twitched. “Normally have a rubber on me, but even still. There’s been no trail of bastards behind me. Don’t reckon I can have them. Childhood illness,” he explained shortly.

Katniss chewed her lip, already made red by his clumsy mouth. “I ‘spose that’s okay,” she said. “Just this time.”

Peeta tweaked her nipple. “Yeah?” he asked lowly. “You sure?”

She nodded and then gasped when he wasted no time, lifting her up and then down onto his hardness.

“Damn,” he swore, his hands tight around her hips. “I didn’t…you feel so…” He bucked upward and she went along for the ride, a passive, gasping participant as he worked her over his cock as if she weighted nothing more than a sack of flour. Long minutes passed in a series of grunts and prayers and exhalations.

“Wait.” Her eyes were screwed tightly shut and her hands scrabbled at his shoulders. “Wait, something—something is happening.”

“Good,” he ground out. “Let it happen. Let _go._ ”

“Peeta- oh…” Katniss stiffened and her body shook with tiny tremors, and the sharp clench of her fingernails into his skin sent him into a sudden release right along with her. 

“Fuck,” he said, lifting her from his still-spurting cock. “Sorry.”

She climbed off him and padded over to a small table and brought back a cloth. She wordlessly cleaned him off while he stared at the crown of her dark hair.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated. He hadn’t spilled like that since he was a boy with his first woman.

“It’s okay,” she said, standing straighter. “You were…that was real nice. _You_ were nice. I’ll remember that.”

Peeta grabbed her wrist when she turned away. “Let me clean you up.”

“I’ll need to wash this off first,” Katniss said, gesturing toward the basin.

“No,” he said, drawing her down to the bed. “With my mouth.”

* * *

The sunlight streaming through the smudged window of room number four sent Peeta’s eyes into slits as he woke up from one of the best night’s sleep he’d ever had. He lifted his head and looked hard at the face of the girl lying next to him.

Then he rolled off the bed, dressed, availed himself of her tooth powder, and walked downstairs to find the whoremonger Sae.

“Here,” Peeta said, turning a bag upside down onto the bar counter top. The old woman blinked down at the pile of coins.

“That good?” she said, a greedy gleam in her eye that he didn’t much care for. It said she was thinking about squeezing the goose until it laid more golden eggs.

“This is enough to buy a year of her time.” His voice was cold and absolute. He put as much murder into it as possible. “No other men. I’ll be back around to check on her. And if there’s even a hint of her bein’ mistreated, I’m gonna know. And I ain’t gonna be happy. Understand?”

“Yes,” she whispered, shrinking backward even as her shaking hand reached out for the gold coins.

“Treat her nice. Treat her like a daughter,” he suggested.

She nodded so hard her jowls quivered. “I will.”

* * *

**Seven Months Later**

Peeta meant to come back long before this. He’d thought about the girl at the saloon far more often than he cared to admit, but being back at the family homestead had taken up the bulk of his time.

The letters from his father had spoken of dire things— his own failing health, a dead brother, and a desperate need for his youngest son to come home and take care of matters. 

Peeta thought it would take a month, maybe two at the most, to settle things at Mellark Ranch, but two months had quickly turned into double that, and before he knew it, he was a rancher instead of a hired killer. Foals needed to be born, and stallions needed to be broken, and crops didn’t just tend to themselves.

But then he finally had a moment to breathe, and with that came an aching inside of him that he could only chalk up to being hard-pressed for a warm body to slip into. And since the body of his choice was only a day’s ride away, well, why not?

Now he was walking into the batwing doors of Sae’s Place, his hair freshly combed hair and a pep in his step that was unbecoming for the scarred-up bastard who was once the Widowmaker. He was practically whistling, for fuck’s sake.

Peeta pushed his way through the crowd and headed toward the familiar countertop at the front of the room.

“Lookin’ for a girl,” he told a barkeep pouring beer into a glass.

“Ah, yes. We got a lot of those,” the man replied with a knowing smirk. He nodded at the wall of keys, where Peeta had once found one labeled _Katniss_. “Nice ones.”

“Don’t want a nice one. Lookin’ for Katniss.”

The barkeep’s face went blank. “Oh- that one…she’s not for sale.”

“Glad to hear it.” Peeta gestured for the beer that had just been freshly poured. The bartender took a quick look at the man who’d originally asked for it, who in turn sized up Peeta before shaking his head and walking away. The barkeep wisely pushed it toward him. “She belongs to me.”

“That so?” came a voice behind him.

Peeta took a long pull from beer and turned away from the other man’s surprised face. He felt a thump of excitement thrum through him as he faced the familiar voice. He’d been looking forward to this moment for—

He opened his mouth and closed it.

She was beautiful. Just as he remembered. Except one detail.

She was heavily pregnant.

“That go for both of us?” Katniss said, putting her hand on her stomach.

_Well, damn._

* * *

“Your family ain’t gonna like this.” Katniss took his hand and climbed into the wagon he’d haggled from a local seller. She was clumsy with child - _his child_ \- and his big hands hovered even as she settled into the worn seat. He placed her pitifully small bag into the back of the wagon before jumping next to her and taking the horse’s reins.

“I’m a grown man. No one has to like it but me.”

She was quiet as they drove away from the dusty little town she’d called home.

“Do you?”

He looked at her.

“D’you like it?” she repeated. Then Katniss looked away. “Never mind.” Her voice was a low mutter. “Was a stupid question. I know you don’t like it. No man would. I’m just…I shouldn’t have left with you. If I’d had the luxury of pride, I’d have said no!” She looked at him with defensive grey eyes. “You-”

“Katniss.”

She stopped talking.

He kept his eyes straight on the path ahead as he spoke. “Didn’t think I could have kids. Never thought about it, ‘specially with the life I lived. But now I’m just a rancher. But it’s a good living. Got a lot of space for a kid to run around. Yeah. Never thought about it before, but…now I’m thinkin’ about it. And I’m thinkin’ I like it.”

Her small hands crept to her stomach. Peeta smiled and flicked the reins.

They moved forward and onward, together.

—

**Author's Note:**

> I'm badnovels on tumblr! Come say hello and be friends.


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